


Schrodinger's LOL

by DisaLanglois



Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-28
Updated: 2010-10-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 22:39:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/129891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisaLanglois/pseuds/DisaLanglois
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was all Penny's fault.  She shouldn't have forwarded the dratted thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Schrodinger's LOL

It was all Penny's fault. Even she had to admit it, months later. She shouldn't have forwarded the dratted thing. She started it all…  
…

 _The apartment was shadowy and quiet, the sort of cosy quiet when two people are each mentally engaged in something different, yet comfortably aware of each other's presence. The refrigerator sang softly to itself in the kitchen, and both men's keyboards rattled very gently as they typed. Otherwise the room was still and peaceful._

Leonard's attention was drawn from his e-journal reading, by the unusual sound of Sheldon's laugh. He glanced across at his friend at the other table, just a few feet away in the quiet, shadowy apartment. Sheldon's face was lit blue by the screen, and at the moment it held a look of impish delight at something.

That was odd. Sheldon didn't usually laugh at what he read online. He regarded the World Wide Web as a great medium of communication, as a fantastic source of information, as an unending fountain of novel ways to waste time. In fact, he'd even written to Tim Berners-Lee to say that he couldn't have designed it better himself, which was a sincere compliment coming from Dr Sheldon Cooper. However, he certainly did not regard the WWW as something to laugh at. Not a laughing matter, but that had definitely been a laugh. Not the snuffy little breath-laugh either; no, that had been the slightly louder **huh-huh-huh-heeeee.** Leonard frowned slightly, and returned to his reading.

 **YOU HAVE A NEW MAIL**

 _Leonard slid his cursor over and reopened his inbox._

From: Sheldon C.  
FW: this is rite up your alley sweetie

 _Sweetie? He glanced over at his friend at the other table. Sheldon's face had gone back to its normal (normal? customary) placid mask. He opened the email._

From: Sheldon (drslcooperphd@gmail.com)  
Sent: 04 June 2010 09:46 PM  
To: thehoff@caltech.edu ; wolowizard@gmail.com; koothrapalli@caltech.edu ; friedrich@cambridge.edu.uk; mustrumridcully@uu.edu.dw … (see more)   
Subject: FW: this is rite up your alley sweetie

>>From: Penny (sugarblossom@yahoo.com)  
>>Sent: 04 June 2010 09:45 PM  
>>To: Sheldon (drslcooperphd@gmail.com)  
>>Subject: this is rite up your alley sweetie  
 ** >>SCHRODINGER'S CAT SURVIVED THE EXPERIMENT BUT HIS  
>>NEW ABILITIES WERE ENTIRELY UNEXPECTED**

 _Leonard leaned forward to have a closer look, disbelieving his eyes. Yes, it was a photograph of a cat, with a caption. He sat back in his chair, took his glasses off, polished his lenses carefully on the front of his hoodie, put them back on, and had another look. It was still a photograph of a cat. With a caption. The cat seemed to have laser-beams shooting from its eyes._

He stared at Sheldon. His messenger window began to flash orange.

 **Sheldon:** Did you get the joke I sent you?

 **Leonard:** yes

 **Sheldon:** It is a good joke. I 'LOL'ed at it.

 **Leonard:** i heard you

 **Sheldon:** Penny sent it to me. I wonder where she found it. I am impressed that she remembers Schrodinger's cat.

 _Leonard looked at Sheldon again. He had long since given up wondering why, while sitting four feet away, Sheldon still preferred speaking via a chat window. He wasn't complaining, mind you – they had had some very intimate and productive conversations this way. Some issues were easier to discuss shorn of all non-verbal cues, particularly between grown men. Particularly when one of the grown men had no real grasp on the kind of subjects other grown men might find uncomfortable._

 **Sheldon:** How do you write an umlaut diacritic in chat?

 **Leonard:** i dont know

 _He opened his chat menu, double clicked on Penny's name. He hadn't been speaking much to her this evening, ever since Sheldon pointed out that the strains of Within Temptation coming through the two doors were a clue that she was at a delicate stage in her menstrual cycle._

 **Penny … needs a pick-me-up this evening…  
Last conversation two hours ago at 7:30PM **

Leonard: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!!!!!!!!

Penny: ?

 **Leonard:** you just sent sheldon a lolcat!!!!

 **Penny:** its ok if he gives me a strike

 **Penny:** i know he doesnt like them i just saw it and thought of u guys

 **Leonard:** he isnt giving you a strike

 **Leonard:** he laughed and he forwarded it to his hwole inbox!!!!!

 **Penny:** wait, what?

 **Leonard:** *whole

 **Penny:** u mean he LIKED IT?

 **Leonard:** he forwarded it to his whole inbox!!!

 **Penny:** :)

 **Leonard:** everyone he corresponds with

 **Leonard:** he sent it to the whole faculty

 **Leonard:** and GEORGE SMOOT

 **Leonard:** oh god

 **Leonard:** he just sent a lolcat to **RICHARD DAWKINS**

 **Penny:** who?

 **Leonard:** the selfish gene guy who invented memes

 **Leonard:** THE richard dawkins!!!!!

 _At his keyboard, Leonard sat back and let his head drop into his hands. There was another ping from his email inbox. With bated breath, dreading what he might find, he opened it._

Sheldon had clearly been very busy in the last three minutes. There were more cats.

 **SCHRODINGER IMPROVES ACCURACY WIF INCREASED SAMPLE SIZE**

SCHRODINGERS CAT … ENTERS WORMHOLE

SCHRODINGER'S CAT WUNDERZ HOW YOU LIEKZ IT?!?

THE LESSER-KNOWN 'SCHRODINGER'S TUBE' EXPERIMENT

UNXPEKTED FRACTAL RESULT IN SCHRODINGER XPERIMENT

IM IN UR BOX PRUVIN SCHRODINGER RONG

IN UR QUANTUM BOX … MAYBE

PHYSICS CAT PREFERS TO SIT ON SOMETHING SOFT

PYTHAGOREAN CAT WILL FIND HYPOTENUSE

I CAN HAS KWANTUMZ SOOPERPOZISHIN?

BRING ME A SHRUBBERY!!

 **Leonard:** this is very bad

 **Penny:** why?

 **Leonard:** weve all been safe as long as he didnt know lolcats sometimes have science jokes in them

 **Leonard:** weve been keeping them from him

 **Leonard:** i think you have just created a monster

 **Penny:** u were keeping JOKES away from him????

 **Penny:** thats horrible!!!

 **Penny:** oh wait

 **Penny:** crap on a cracker

 **Penny:** did u get all these too?

 **Penny:** O_O

 **Leonard:** yes

 **Leonard:** so did raj

 **Leonard:** let me check….

 **Leonard:** yup, so did richard dawkins

 _There was another ping from his email inbox. Sheldon had discovered the I Can Has series. There hadn't been any more out-loud laughs, but the stream of cats continued. Leonard saw the other chat window began to flash. He clicked on it._

 **Sheldon:** Friedrich will know.

 **Leonard:** know what?

 **Sheldon:** Friedrich will know how to type umlauts in IRC. I needn't search for that myself.

 _A new chat window popped up._

 **Rajesh:** w

 **Rajesh:** t

 **Rajesh:** f

 **Leonard:** dont stress, im working on it.

 _He reopened the chat window with Sheldon. In the meantime, more cats had arrived. They were beginning to be augmented with dogs. Any moment now, Leonard knew, he was sure to receive a walrus._

 **Leonard:** sheldon, listen, about these cats

 **Sheldon:** They *are* funny, aren't they? They form what is called a meme.

 **Leonard:** yes they do and they've been around for a really long time

 **Sheldon:** Do you ever think Richard Dawkins regrets not putting more time and thought into selecting the word 'meme?'

 **Leonard:** ?

 **Sheldon:** I get that it rhymes with 'gene' but still it's not a very dignified word, is it?

 **Sheldon: Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeme.**

 **Leonard: PLEASE DONT WRITE AND ASK HIM!!!!!**

 _Penny's chat window started flashing again._

 **Penny:** do something leanord the cats are still coming!!!! 

 _Leonard leaned back from his chair, snatching a break from dealing with the cyber-Sheldon by gazing sadly at the real one. Sheldon's fingers were flying over his keys, his right hand zapping his mouse back and forth across his Wolverine mousepad like some latter-day Wyatt Earp. In that space of time, Leonard's inbox began to fill with CeilingCat._

 **Leonard:** sheldon, some of the cats you sent me have been around on the internet for years

 **Leonard:** and ive seen a lot of them before

 **Sheldon:** Amazing! All this time, and I had no idea of the potential of the concept of the 'Lolcat' as a source of intelligent humorous material!

 **Leonard:** look, buddy, i'm going to have to be blunt here

 **Leonard:** please please please, stop sending so many cats?

 _He heard Sheldon's chair creak sharply as he pulled himself backwards in surprise. He sneaked a look. Sheldon was staring at the screen with an astonished, aggrieved expression. Fortunately he didn't seem to have remembered that the Leonard who had just hurt his feelings and the Leonard sitting quietly watching him were one and the same._

 **Leonard:** don't get me wrong buddy

 **Leonard:** everybody likes them

 **Leonard:** its just that weve all already seen most of them

 **Leonard:** ok?

 **Sheldon:** I'm afraid I don't quite understand.

 **Sheldon:** Is there a problem with the age and provenance of the cats?

 **Leonard:** well, that and the volume

 **Leonard:** lolcats are like….

 **Leonard:** um, theyre like thai curry

 **Leonard:** if you have a bowl of tom yum, its very nice

 **Leonard:** but if you have a whole lot of tom yum its too much and you stop enjoying it

 **Leonard:** and most people have already seen the ones you just sent, so in effect its actually like previously eaten tom yum

 **Sheldon:** Maybe I should stop sending other people's lolcats and make a few new ones? Really, really good educational ones?

 **Leonard:** yeah, you can try that

 **Sheldon:** I will do that then.

 _Leonard watched his screen for a bit, waiting for another line in the chat window, and then when nothing happened he sat and watched Sheldon. His friend was frowning in concentration, typing, thinking, pecking his delete key, thinking some more._

 **Penny:** hey they stopped

 **Penny:** what did u do?

 **Leonard:** i may have created a bigger monster

 **Leonard:** remains to be seen

 _A moment later another email arrived in his inbox. He opened it, not sure what he would find._

It was a picture of a plump ginger cat, sitting on a table cloth.   
At the top was the caption   
**  
He(r,R)x(r,R)=EeX(r,R)**  
At the bottom was the caption  
 **[Tn+Ee(R)]o(R)=Eo(R)**

Leonard felt his mouth open with the words 'but that's not funny at all and the formula is wrong anyway,' _but managed to clamp his jaws shut before he could say it aloud._

And then it struck him that, as a lolcat, it was the most ridiculously unfunny lolcat he'd ever seen. The caption wasn't remotely funny. Neither was the cat. And to most people it wouldn't even frackin' **mean** anything. Caption and cat sat together, sharing the same screen, but totally unrelated and blithely unconcerned about it. It was so very Sheldon, so utterly beautifully typical of him, that to Leonard, it was suddenly funny. He pressed his palms against his cheeks and LOLed.

He realized that Sheldon had swivelled his chair around and was watching him intently with an expression of triumph.

"You laughed!" Sheldon said, gleefully. "I will forward this one."

"Yeah, you do that."

 _Sheldon swivelled back to his screen._

A few moments later Leonard's chat window was flashing again.

 **Rajesh:** w

 **Rajesh:** t

 **Rajesh:** f

 **Penny:** i dont know what the heck it is but i bet i know who made it

 **Leonard:** he did

 **Penny:** thats actually the cutest thing ive ever seen!

 **Penny:** its a shelcat! awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

 **Leonard:** i have a nasty suspicion this is just the beginning….


End file.
